From This Day On

by Janice Kay Johnson

  Later he talked her into going out to dinner. Once he found out she hadn’t yet discovered Apizza Scholls, he dragged her across town to the Hawthorne neighborhood.

  “Best pizza on the west coast,” he promised. They shared a veggie plate and the New York White Pie, a mouthwatering mix of mozzarella, pecorino Romano, ricotta and lots of garlic. Jakob was gratified by the pleasure she took in the meal.

  He had the impression she was trying to pick a fight while they ate, though, and wasn’t a hundred percent happy to find out they mostly agreed on politics, local and national, the right to die, gay marriage, U.S. drug policy and every other controversial issue she could dredge up. It got so Jakob, amused, would have agreed with her even when he didn’t just to aggravate her.

  “Well, this is no fun,” she finally declared.

  He laughed. “What? You wanted to peg me as an arrogant, money-hungry, elitist, corporate stuffed-shirt? Haven’t we spent enough time together this week for you to know better?”

  Amy wrinkled her nose at him. “If I keep poking and prodding, I figure the jerk I remember will show himself.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You’ve changed.” Her gaze was unexpectedly intense. “I mean, more than most people do. Me...” She shrugged. “I’m still myself. You know?”

  He considered that. “Yes and no. You’ve gotten past the in-your-face rebellion.”

  “Most people do by the time they reach their thirties.”

  “True,” he conceded, studying her. “I guess you got tired of having all the metal on your ears clank every time you shook your head.”

  She fingered one ear. “I have some tiny scars.”

  “Tattoos?”

  “One on my butt. Probably a mistake. Someday it’ll sag.”

  He immediately wanted to see it. Was it a dainty little accent, or something bolder? Oh, damn—the very idea turned him on.

  “No sagging yet,” he remarked, careful to sound only casually interested. “Why’s that? I haven’t seen you exerting yourself.”

  “I run. And do yoga.” Humor glinted gold in her eyes. “It’s my effort to achieve serenity.”

  “Ever tried mountain biking?”

  She went quiet. “I’m not much into biking.”

  God. He hoped like hell that wasn’t his fault. “Because of the flat tire?”

  “The what?” Amy focused on him. “Oh, that. Of course not. I used a bike to commute to a job for a while in Seattle, until I got hit by a car. Some jackass who took off. I broke an arm. What really scared me, though, was that my helmet split in half.”

  “But it protected your head the way it was supposed to.”

  “I guess so.” She gave a half defiant, half resigned, one-shoulder shrug. “It freaked me out, though. Plus, my bike was toast. I went back to riding the bus.”

  The Amy he saw right now, the one who’d just told that story, was quintessentially her, Jakob realized. Brassy in one way, wanting to thumb her nose at the world and him in particular, but also vulnerable. He liked the veneer, but the sometimes shy, uncertain, lonely person he could see underneath made him feel uncomfortable and unfamiliar emotions.

  He was probably the one who got quiet after that. They didn’t talk much during the drive back to her mother’s house. He parked on the street again and nodded at the suspicious old guy who was whittling away at the hedge again.

  “Hey, Mr. C.,” Amy called, and the neighbor came really close to cracking a smile.

  Waiting while Amy unlocked, Jakob reflected on how everybody had always wanted to like Amy. Maybe it was her soft underbelly they could see, maybe the sprinkling of freckles on that small nose, maybe a smile that always seemed to surprise her. He didn’t like thinking she’d never been really happy and still wasn’t. One thing he was sure about—her mother was wrong in believing Amy hadn’t needed to know the truth that defined her life. Answers might allow her to understand why her childhood had been so damn dysfunctional. Maybe now she’d be able to move on.

  He grimaced behind her back. If that wasn’t psychobabble, he’d never heard it.

  “I should get some more work done,” she announced even before she had the front door shut behind them.

  “Why don’t we talk?” Jakob suggested.

  Her eyes shied from his. “We’ve been talking. All evening.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “I’m not sure what there is to say.”

  “You’ve got to have a million thoughts going through your head.”

  She hesitated. “Maybe. Jakob, aren’t you getting tired of my drama yet?”

  “Nope.” Not even close.

  Amy heaved a sigh. “Fine.”

  She agreed she wouldn’t mind another cup of coffee, and let him go off to the kitchen to make it. Seemed she didn’t have a lot of qualms about taking advantage of free domestic help when it was on offer.

  They sat on the sofa, Jakob at one end, Amy at the other. He stretched out as comfortably as he could and watched her tuck one foot under her so that she was facing him, cradling the mug of coffee between her hands.

  “Do you think Mom really didn’t want me to know because she thought I’d be hurt?” she asked abruptly.

  Oh, man. Maybe he wasn’t all that qualified for this talk.

  “I don’t know,” he admitted. “You’ve got to remember, I don’t know her. Not the way you do.”

  “But that’s just it.” She leaned forward. “I don’t. I’ve been realizing how much I’ve learned about my mother since I moved into this house.” She looked around, but he could tell she wasn’t really seeing anything in particular. “Notes she wrote to herself. The way she files. Her garden. It’s not that I’ve been digging in her closet or anything like that,” Amy added hastily. “But you can’t help noticing things about people.”

  “What have you learned?” he asked, curious.

  “She’s obsessively organized. I kind of knew that, but not the extent of it. Even her garden. She didn’t do much gardening until she and Ken bought this house. But when Mom decided to take it up, she didn’t go at it halfheartedly. Not her. She bought books—I swear there’s an entire bookcase of gardening books upstairs. No landscape designer. See, that would have been ceding control. Most people would say having a designer would take the fun out of it, but Mom? I don’t think she has fun. And no surprise, she didn’t go for a cottage garden. It had to be English manor classical, all straight lines, symmetry, exact spacing. It’s beautiful, but you know she’d napalm some poor plant that came up from seed in the wrong place.”

  “Maybe she learned her gardening style from the guy next door. He’s got that hedge terrorized.”

  Amy giggled. “Mr. Cherpeski? You’ve got a point. Oh, boy, I’m glad Mom didn’t put in a hedge. I might have had to decline the offer of two years of free housing.”

  “For fear of letting it run wild?” Jakob gave a slow grin. “Mr. C. might have been flattered if you’d begged him to take it over. Uh, how are you and your mother’s garden getting along?”

  “So far, I’m following her instructions to the letter. Remind me to show you her instructions. They look like some college professor’s lesson plan for a year-long course. I mean, we’re talking a binder here.”

  “You grew up with her. How did you miss this?”

  It was as if he’d opened a Pandora’s box of a different kind. Amy talked until she was hoarse about her mother. Why the absent woman who owned this house wasn’t the same person as the mother Amy remembered. Unlike most people, he had the advantage of remembering Michelle, who put together fine school lunches but who he’d swear had never once asked him how his day had gone when he came in the door.

  All the time Amy talked, Jakob watched the shifting expressions on a face that wasn’t pretty in a conventional way, but
still made him think of fairies in 19th century children’s books. And he wished like hell she’d tug the neckline of her shirt up so it didn’t expose her delicate collarbone, bare shoulder and too much creamy skin.

  “What I don’t know,” Amy finally concluded, “is whether she’s the way she is because of the rape, or because of her parents.” She huffed out a breath. “Probably both. They were really stiff. When my grandparents visited, I didn’t have to worry about being smothered in hugs or having my cheek pinched.”

  He tore his gaze from the upper curve of her breast. “Michelle might have been channeling her own mother when it came to parenting.”

  “Like we’re doomed to? I hope I’m not.” There was something wistful in her eyes. “Maybe I’d better not have kids.” She shrugged as if to be sure he knew she didn’t care. “Not that it seems to be happening, anyway.”

  “You should have kids.” His voice came out rough. “You won’t be anything like your mother.”

  Amy’s startled gaze met his. “How do you know?”

  “Because you aren’t anything like her.” He knew that much. “You’re genuine. Emotional, honest. Fun to be with. Polite even when you’re mad.” Jakob let himself smile. “You give a guy a second chance.”

  “Twenty-five years later.”

  “Who’s counting?”

  He loved her laugh. It was pretty close to the earlier giggle. What would she have been like if she’d been appreciated and adored from the beginning, instead of having a cold fish for a mother, an older brother who resented her very existence and a father who emotionally abandoned her, leaving her bewildered?

  Less complicated, certainly. Maybe not as interesting, he realized, disconcerted by his own conclusion.

  “Where were you when I needed you?” she asked. Lightly, not as if she meant it, but he felt the jab, anyway.

  “Being an idiot.”

  She was quiet for a minute. “You haven’t had kids, either.”

  “No. Susan and I hadn’t even seriously talked about it. A clue to the state of our marriage, I guess.”

  Amy’s expression was grave. “I only met her a couple of times.”

  “You didn’t miss much.” Irritated with himself, he made a sharp, impatient gesture. “That’s harsh, and I don’t mean it. But she wasn’t what she presented herself to be. She was supposedly big on mountain-biking and kayaking. A vegan chef, completely passionate. She’d chew me out about what I ate. Talked about all these adventures we could have, like buying a catamaran and sailing across the Pacific. I finally figured out that she knew who I was when we met, supposedly by accident, at a bar where I was hoisting a few for a friend’s bachelor party. She liked the cool look of Wilderness Girl, but once we were married she quit actually wanting to head into the wilderness. When I got her there, she was a whiner. The vegan thing was a phase. So was being a chef. She liked doing fun things with her girlfriends. Her happiest moment was when the Oregonian did a spread on us because I was a ‘rising entrepreneur.’” He felt like an idiot even saying all this. Toward the end of his five-year marriage, he had the feeling an alien had taken over the woman he’d married. More likely, he’d just plain been taken. “Unfortunately, the company was expanding fast and I had to pay a shit-pot full to get free of her.”

  Amy had listened as if she really wanted to know. “I’m sorry. I guess, um, Susan is one of the reasons you’re so insistent on the women’s clothing Boulder River carries being about more than how it looks.”

  Her comment took him by surprise. “Maybe,” he said after a minute.

  “Well, at least you tried. Me, I always shy clear of a relationship getting serious. It doesn’t feel like it’s meant to be, not for me.”

  He heard again in her voice that determination not to be an object of pity. Who, me? she always seemed to be saying. Why would she want to be cherished, valued, appreciated? It could be she even believed herself. It didn’t cross most people’s minds to want what they’d never had.

  But damn, Jakob hurt fiercely for her at the thought, at her casual dismissal of any dreams.

  “You thought figuring out your mother would help you understand yourself.”

  She bent her head and gave another of those shrugs. The slouchy neckline slid lower. She was too small for anything he could call a cleavage, but he could see a distinct curve now. “Sounds dumb, doesn’t it?”

  “No, it makes sense.”

  That earned him a startled look.

  “Dad’s left a couple of messages. I’ve deleted them.”

  “He left me one, too. I just...didn’t listen.”

  “You think you’ll want to talk to him?” Jakob asked.

  “Oh, eventually. He was nice to me.”

  “You’re not pissed at him?” he asked, sounding edgy even to his own ears.

  “Are you?”

  “You think? He lied to me, too, you know.”

  She nodded at that. “Yes,” she blurted. “Yes, I am mad. He meant well, but not knowing what was wrong was awful. I thought...it was me. You know?” She swallowed and looked away. “I guess it was me, in a way.”

  “No, damn it.” He could tell his anger had broken through in a big way, because there was shock in her eyes. “What changed about you after you fell off those monkey bars? Nothing. Not one thing. I get why he was angry at your mother. But if he loved you, he loved you. Being a parent isn’t all about passing on your genes.”

  “He should have figured it out sooner,” Amy said in a stifled voice. “Just look at us. How could we be brother and sister?”

  “I’ve known full siblings who didn’t look much alike.” He said it to be kind, because the truth was, in their family she had looked like the baby left in a basket on the back step.

  She snorted, a rude but still somehow feminine sound that almost made Jakob smile despite the grimness of the topic.

  “I thought Mom might call again.”

  “She hasn’t?”

  Amy shook her head. “I wonder if Ken knows. About the rape, I mean.”

  “If she didn’t tell my dad, I doubt she’s told anyone.”

  “No. This must have been a really unpleasant surprise for her.”

  He grunted his agreement. “She was pretty emotional. I didn’t know she could be.”

  Amy made a face. “There was all that yelling when we were little.”

  “Mostly Dad yelling, though. Your mother usually kept her voice low.”

  She shivered. “I’d forgotten.”

  “Are she and this Ken happy, do you think?”

  “I actually do. He’s really smart, but so easygoing all he does is tease Mom if she gets sharp with him. A few times I’ve seen her blush and look at him as if...” She stole a look at Jakob. “You know.”

  “She has the hots for him.”

  “I was thinking more that she’s in love with him.”

  “The two things kind of go together, don’t you think?”

  “I wouldn’t know. I’ve never been in love.”

  Don’t go there, he warned himself, while knowing he wouldn’t be able to resist. “But you’ve had the hots for guys?”

  “I’m thirty-four years old. Of course I have.” She drew her knees up and wrapped her arms around them in a clearly defensive posture, glaring at him over them. “Why would you ask something like that?”

  Good question, Nilsson. Why would you?

  He aimed for an easy grin. “Dad tells me about your, er, career moves. He never mentions guys.”

  “That’s because he and I talk, like, twice a year and we don’t get that personal. And if by career moves, you mean whatever crap job I’m holding to actually pay the bills.”

  “You’re not working a crap job right now.”

  “My writing income is finally climbing
, plus no rent,” she explained. “Speaking of which, I was thinking.”

  He braced himself.

  “I’ll bet I could sell an interview with rising entrepreneur Jakob Nilsson.”

  Relaxing, he laughed. He didn’t know what he’d expected, but not this. “Written by Amy Nilsson? You plan to explain our relationship?”

  She opened her mouth and then closed it. “I guess that’s easier said than done.”

  “Yeah, I’m afraid it is.” He hesitated. “You considered writing about what you’re going through? Finding out who your father is?”

  “You mean, finding out my father is a monster?” Her eyes flashed gold sparks.

  “If that’s the case.”

  “If?” Her entire body tightened. “What? You think there’s a possibility there was some other guy in between?”

  “No, of course not. I can’t see your mom being into casual sex right after she was raped. Besides, both our parents were pretty definite.” Jakob hesitated, knowing he was stepping onto treacherous ground. “What I mean is that, at some point, you might want to find out more about the guy. It wouldn’t be that hard, you know. He didn’t come out of the bushes wearing a mask. Your mother knew him. She told you his name. He was a student at Wakefield College.”

  He’d have sworn she was vibrating.

  “He raped her.”

  “Yes, he did,” Jakob said, his voice heavy with regret, “and I’m not making excuses for that. I’m only saying you might want to research him. That’s what you do.”

  Those furious eyes were still flashing fear and anger. “Did you look him up online?”

  “No.” He was glad to be able to answer honestly. “I won’t do that, Amy. I swear. A decision like that is yours to make.” What he didn’t tell her, and wouldn’t, was that he had a suspicion he knew who her father was. He hadn’t verified the possibility and could be wrong. But he’d recognized the name immediately. Only the fact that she was new in Oregon had kept Amy from doing the same.

  For a long, quivering moment she stared at him. Then she seemed to collapse, curving inward. She laid her forehead against her crossed arms. “I almost did it today.” The voice that emerged was muffled.